Will Pfeifer: This show’s not kid-friendly. Seriously.

Friday

Jul 25, 2008 at 12:01 AMJul 25, 2008 at 9:35 AM

My daughter is 3 years old. Like most kids her age, she loves talking animals, cartoons and friendly children’s show hosts. “TV Funhouse” has all of those elements, but it’ll be a long, long time before she catches a glimpse of an episode.

Will Pfeifer

My daughter is 3 years old. Like most kids her age, she loves talking animals, cartoons and friendly children’s show hosts. “TV Funhouse” has all of those elements, but it’ll be a long, long time before she catches a glimpse of an episode.

Comedy Central only aired eight shows back in 2000, but “TV Funhouse” is one of those programs that once you’ve seen it, you can never forget it. In fact, you probably won’t be sure what exactly it was that you saw. Thankfully, the complete run has just been collected and released on a new double-DVD set.

Besides the fittingly wacky description of the show, the DVD box includes not one but two reminders that, all appearances aside, this is not a kids show. Above the bold PARENTAL ADVISORY, there’s also a note from Comedy Central’s “legal folks” that “this really isn’t appropriate for kids! At all!” Sure, it might seem like overkill — until you actually watch the series.

That’s because “TV Funhouse” mimicked the look and feel of a low-budget kids show but included content that was as adult as anything Comedy Central has ever aired. The premise sounds innocent enough — jolly host Doug encourages his “Anipals” to get into the spirit of that show’s theme — but things go way, way off track immediately and head straight into strangeland.

For one thing, not only are the Anipals not kid-friendly, they’re not friendly, period. Cranky, lazy and consumed with their own issues, they couldn’t care less if it’s “Caveman Day,” “Western Day” or “Astronaut Day.”

Most episodes begin with them sneaking out of the Funhouse and heading off to some less savory pursuit, like a vacation at Atlantic City or an excursion into animal testing. (My favorite twisted trip was when the Anipals dined at a restaurant called “Sames,” where the motto was “You Eat What You Are.” A lizard kept regenerating his tail and eating it over and over again. Sick? Yes. Funny? You bet.)

Meanwhile, poor Doug is stuck with the most pathetic Anipals, including a dog obsessed with catching his tail or a fish that constantly needs water poured over it. To pass the time, he shows bizarre cartoons and “educational” films. And this is where “TV Funhouse” really gets weird.

There’s “Stedman,” a cartoon about Oprah’s boyfriend who pretends to be a secret agent to avoid intimacy with Oprah. There’s “The Black Sabbath Show,” where the heavy metal pioneers are reborn as lovable goofs (and this was before MTV aired “The Osbournes”). There’s “Kidder, Downey and Heche,” where three celebs with trespassing experience fight crime. There’s “Fetal Scooby Doo,” “Captain Marginal” and “Mischievous Mitchell.” And last — but least explainable — there’s “The Baby, The Immigrant and the Guy on Mushrooms.” It’s funny, but I have no idea what the heck it means.

You might get that same feeling during much of “TV Funhouse” — and that’s why it works. Most TV shows — even edgy, go-for-broke comedies — play it safe, sticking it to the same targets and pushing the same “shocking” buttons. “TV Funhouse” doesn’t do that. It hits targets you never thought of and pushes buttons you didn’t even know you had. You hear this claim a lot, but this time it’s true: “TV Funhouse” is like nothing you’ve seen before.

But it’s not for kids. Seriously. Have I mentioned that yet?

Will Pfeifer writes about new DVDs on Tuesdays and older ones on Fridays. Contact him at wpfeifer@rrstar.com or 815-987-1244. Read his Movie Man blog at blogs.e-rockford.com/movieman/. See the Movie Man’s video version of this review at rrstar.com/multimedia.